Tomball won the battle of the pitchers, picking up 2 runs in the bottom of the 6th to beat San Antonio Johnson 2-0 to advance the the 6A State Championship game. Tomball will now face Pearland in an all-Houston 6A State Championship game, the first since 2013.
Neither team could get anything going offensively for the first 5 innings as Tomball’s C.J. Sampson and Johnson’s Tyler Walton kept hitters baffled for most of the game.
Tomball had chances in the the 4th and the 5th but Walton and his teammates kept getting out of the jams. In the 4th inning, Braeden Scherzer singled and then stole 2nd. A Keegan Demmer ground out moved Scherzer over to 3rd with just one out. But Walton got a ground out that held the runner and a strikeout to end the threat.
Tomball had another chance in the 5th when Gehrig Heckathorn singled and Cade Arrambide doubled moving Hecathorn over to 3B with no outs. But Walton got two fly outs and a force out at home to end that threat.
The third time was a charm for Tomball. In the 6th , Catcher Hopkins singled and Karson Reeder got aboard with a throwing error that moved Hopkins to 3rd and Reeder to 2nd. Walton got a big strikeout for the second out in the inning and then gave an intentional walk to Arrambide. Blaine Lucas came to the plate with two outs and singled to right field scoring Hopkins and Heckathorn and giving Tomball the 2-0 lead.
Sampson came back out in the 7th after having retired the previous 11 batters. He got two fly outs and struck out the last batter to get Tomball the win. Sampson pitched 7 innings of shutout ball on 4 hits, 7 strikeouts and no walks. He was named the THSB Player of the Game.
Sampson spoke about his performance on the evening: “Every inning I went out there I just tried to control what I could control. Just compete, do my best. Trust my catcher in everything we do. It’s been working all season for us. So we just went out and competed and we won the game.”
Head Baseball Coach Doug Rush also had words about Sampson: “I think that is his third straight shutout. He’s been so big for us. He’s money. He never walks anyone. It’s comforting to know that you can roll someone out there and he’s not going to give any free passes. And we played very good defense behind him.”
Johnson..0 0 0 0 0 0 0 – 0 .4. 1
Tomball. 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 – 2 .7 .0
